This slogan really irritates me, the only limits are your own, wtf? reminds me of zombo.com

In the light of AoC's abysmal effort, and the recent flood of Vanguard fanboi threads, I decided to give this dieing donkey another go. I unfortunately graced this game a year ago and as a result I felt the effects of its initial failure. I remember distinctly its main problem was performance, requiring you to have a beast of a machine to run on medium settings with no lagg and it was Brad's furvent belief that bad performance wasnt down to any fault of the game, but everyone elses computers, so I quit.

A year on however and im pleasantly surprised.

Upon initial login im faced with a near perfect frame rate, "fantastic" im thinking, SoE are actually LISTENING for once! But then it dawns on me, that in the years time since I last played it, ive upgraded my graphics card and memory. I would be interested to see just how much of an FPS the new client has over the old client on the same older hardware.

At any rate, I tweaked the game up to ultra settings, minor hitching, but thats becuase of my shit memory. Visually the game is how I remember it, bland and boring. The Animation is hitchy and in some places amusing (goblins flip staffs around like its a circus trick), gameplay wise, I find myself falling asleep. However I will praise Brad's design choice of having three gameplay archetypes, when you get bored of combat, you can go do some crafting or diplomacy, it does add a level of grind distraction.

I noticed the old EU server is now an international server (there is no EU server), whether this was becuase of low pop im not sure. Also they've reduced the options in character creation, whereas before you could edit players faces, now you have a selection or 3-4 standard faces and you can modify parts of the body + hair.

It wasnt long before I hit my first bug. I think its around 3 hours into the game and its a pretty annoying one as it effects a key quest line. Players in local were polite and suggested I send a petition, so I did, then I waited 3 hours for a response, nothing came, went to bed, got up the next day and a GM contacted me around noon. No qualms the GM fixed my problem, but the fact all GM's are in the US (im EU) is slightly annoying, I have to check times so I can work out when I need to be online to get a GM response.

Since then ive found numerous bugged quests, from the mug quest in the docks, to crafting and diplomacy bugs. They are far and few between to be honest, but they do exist. When you arrive at the docks you notice the NPC's that have fallen through the floor (and have been that way since beta). Simple things like this really should have been fixed months ago, but then I think to myself, its SoE, what do you expect?

One feature I really liked was the Rift system, its a teleportation system, like griffons. You talk to an NPC, choose the location, pay a sum and you teleport. It makes getting from A - B in the game much easier.

Over all, ive tried to enjoy this game but it just isnt fun. Most of the gameplay is solo as there are very few players around, and when there are players around they dont seem to be able to communicate. I seem to recall most group quests are at 20+, however I dont think ill make it that far as im bored already.

Ive reached level 15 with my character (in all three archetypes), Ive mildly enjoyed the game. Its just a shame the game wasnt this playable back when it released. But I cant play this game anymore. The gameplay is boring, theres very little player interaction and the bugs and glitches make it frustrating at times.

More then anything, I think its the fact that SoE is running this game that drives me away from it. Every flaw, problem and mistake is amplified in my own mind, reminding me of their previous errors in prior games which eventually led to even worse decisions. It eventually brings me to the conclusion that, if SoE do become successfull with Vanguard, it will be patched slowly, new content will only come out on yearly expansions and they will only seek to milk it for as long as they can. And thats if it goes well, if it doesnt go well, it will either get shelved with a minimal dev team or have some horror like patch called NGE unleashed onto it.

SoE just make me think, meh...

Sorry Brad, but I cant pay for your game, and its becuase of this bloke.

Its kind of funny since the only game that SOE has actually RUINED was SWG and its time to get over that. The rest of junk games have been purchased from other developers. EQ2 may not be a raging success but it still holds its own and makes money. Same for EQ.

SOE only ever ruined on SWG and that was on Lucas Arts command..its sad people will never get over this fact. EQ1 & EQ2 are the only big ones they've ever made and they're just fine, though they do milk it with expansions. Vanguard would be pretty much gone if it wasn't for SOE...and while its sad it has a minimal dev team on it we have to thank Brad's giant egotistical delusion he knows how to manage a project for that. Brad ruined his own game..SOE just made it possible so those that like it..can still play it people should be semi thankful for that.

EQ1 = Only successful becuase it was new to the market, to date it has more expansions than any other MMO, not because its older, but becuase they release more per annum then anyone else. They rarely release content through patches.

EQ2 = Rush released onto the market and could only be considered a finished product one year after release. Those that like it, kudos to you, I dont like it.

Planetside = Probably there only success story, which they've squandered through lack of new content, and shelving it.

Listen : I don't like at all AOC, but I play Anarchy Online.
AC2 has been stopped i won't play DDO but I play Lotro.

I'm not a fanboy i'm not a hateboy
Just a player. I play good games , i don' t play bad games.
VG is a good game. Lotro is now a good game, DAOC is a good game, Anarchy Online is a good game. EQ2 is a good game.

EA, SOE or Turbine

who cares ?
THe most important is : the game.

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Out of subject.

Not even a word for describing the game. A lot of words to say you're a soe hater.

You guys are all a buncha cry babies. SWG was broken as hell when it was released. REMEMBER?

Yeah, you had your player cities and only like 5 jedi per server and everything was dandy as hell, right?

Creature handling was perfectly balanced, right?

Eveyrone was happy and grouping with eachother, right?

No one was sitting inside of town with there computer on overnight, AFK, shooting mobs to gain skill, right?

The few Jedi that existed weren't pwning absolutely everyone they saw, right?

That was sarcasm. Although SWG sucked pretty bad before the NGE, I do agree that it sucks a bit more- but be realistic, SWG has had HUGE problems from the start. The NGE was a great marketing strategy to grab new gamers to keep the game alive. And yes I'm pissed off that 4 years of work was deleted but that's why I quit.

I'm guessing the technical issues kept you from playing much the first time around, or else you are not very good at learning from mistakes.

My main issue with Vanguard has always been the horrible, boring gameplay, and it seems like you finally realize that that's the real problem. Except then you drag SOE into the argument, which is really unnecessary.

This game sucks, and always did. SOE got it working, which is a point in their favor, but it sounds like they've failed to make it fun, which is not surprising as it's not something they've ever been good at.

SOE saved Vanguard from itself. SOE doesn't have to do anything with this game, it could have let it die. But there were those who played it so they keep it going. Since it's not a SOE original work (like MXO) it gets the skeleton crew dev team. They are keeping the game going so the people who do enjoy it can still play it unlike other MMOs where they just pull the plug.

The only actual disaster was SWG. This wasn't even a SOE decision, Lucasarts wanted some of the World of Warcraft pie. If SOE wanted to do that they could have used EQ2. Look at Lucasarts games, there are many losers in there. Lucasarts is not som infalliable company.

Lol sad responses, i agree 100% god puppet. The game is dull and boring, id rather play a text RPG ROFLMAO!!!! I played it upon release and had nothing but the same issues, very bland programming/animations.

I don't see how the adventuring is so bland compared to any other MMO. There aren't alot of super shiney sparkly particle effects, but the gameplay itself is simiiar and as dull as any other MMO. The crafting system is pretty awesome. Harvesting effects are cool, and player housing is the bomb. Not to mention the uninstanced world is amazing.

The environment is very crisp and alive. That of course is subjective. I don't see it as the best MMO that ever existed, but it's not as horrible as you're claming it to be. But as you said it could be because you have all that SoE hate inside. Obviously if you go into something already hating it, it's going to be harder to start liking.

I know there are bugs in the game, but you must have went looking for them. I'm level 27 and I've come across merely 2 broken quests. In fact we have a 200+ man guild in Vanguard now, and this has only begun since AOC's failure and the free month, and all of us find few bugged quests. Glad to see you gave it a fair shake, though.

No comments about author complains? Just "we know you do not like SEO"? His complains are real, despite he does not like SEO in general.

I do not have this problem with names, but once I have bad experience with some company, I tend to be more careful with them also in future.

For sure I'm one of those players that will not leave AoC to go back to Vanguard. I will eventually leave at some point in time, but not for Vanguard. It is also pretty funny reading comments how somebody does not like AoC because of bugs, problems, and will go to Vanguard. To Vanguard that has history of one of the worst launches in MMORPG world (besides Funcom AO). So I'm pretty annoyed by similar complains because start of AoC was really fabulous compared to start of Vanguard.